Anika Kotaru

In early June, university President Richard Benson, along with the marketing team in the
Office of Communications, launched a new brand campaign to celebrate UTD’s 50th
anniversary. The idea is meant to highlight the university’s mission and
increase its visibility in the community.

“There’s something that has started to frustrate me: I
cannot count the number of times people have said to me, ‘UTD is Dallas’s best
kept secret.’ Of course, they mean it as a compliment, but I don’t want it to
be a secret,” Benson said. “We designed this campaign to get the word out. We are
coming into a celebration of our 50th year, so we were looking for a number of
ways we could celebrate. I sometimes wish that the university’s founders could
come back and gaze upon UTD and see the students that are here. It was really
bold and daring, what they attempted to do back in the 1960s. We’ve grown into
such an impressive university.”

Before the university was founded, it was a private research
center titled the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest. This was
established by Eugene McDermott, Cecil Green, and Erik Jonsson in 1961. Eight
years later, it became part of the UT system.

“It’s just a nice time. We are still a very young
university. If you look at the schools we compete with, a great majority of
them were founded 150 years ago,” Benson said.

Kent Best, the senior director of marketing, also helped
develop the campaign.

“The marketing team had begun this about a year ago,” Best
said. “We wanted an advertising tagline that would be tied to the 50th
anniversary of the university. We brainstormed possible taglines that would be
fitting to UTD and we focused on the smart nature of our students, faculty, and
staff.”

The campaign’s primary purpose is to raise awareness for UTD
through means of print advertising and social media. Ads are posted in both DFW
and Lovefield airports, as well as billboards around the Dallas-Fort Worth
area.

“I think it’s about getting the name out there. I grant that
‘speed of bright’ is pretty brief and in some ways, it doesn’t even come close
to capturing what we have here. It is just something to cause you to think
about UTD, whether you’re in the airport or just driving down the highway,”
Benson said. “It’s a way to remind people that there is a very fine university
located in their backyard.”